For mom, children mean love

At 75, she still gets up every night to feed a baby.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LEAVITTSBURG -- If everyone who calls Frances Humphrey Mom -- or Grandma, or Mammy -- sends a card this Mother's Day, there may be no cards left in the store for anyone else.
A lot of children have passed through Humphrey's modest, white-sided home on Fisher Street. The 75-year-old retired nurse's assistant has 11 children, 36 grandchildren and 51 great-grandchildren.
And, for the past seven years, foster children, too -- 33 of them, by last count.
"I just love kids," said Humphrey, sitting on an overstuffed couch with great-granddaughter Sara, 3, by her side. "It just isn't a home without a child."
On that particular day, Sara was visiting because her mother, who lives nearby, had to work.
The 5- and 6-year-olds Humphrey is fostering for Trumbull County Children Services were at school and the 2- and 22-month-old babies were sleeping in bedrooms.
Sound asleep at the moment, but, Humphrey said, she feeds the youngest every four hours, right through the night.
"She has never refused a child," said Renee Nardella, who recruits foster parents for children's services.
Recognition
Humphrey was recognized recently as the county agency's Foster Parent of the Year.
Tickets for two whole tables at the annual banquet were snapped up by her children and other relatives.
It's a close family: One grown son lives next door, another across the street, and two more children within a block of the single-story home Frances' husband, French, built himself.
French, who worked at General Refactories in Warren, died nearly six years ago.
It was his idea to begin taking in foster children. Now, having children around has helped ease the pain of his death, she said.
And the work isn't so bad: keeping the house clean, despite its dozens of angel statuettes and religious and personal pictures, shopping for the kids' favorite foods, fixing dinner for an army each night and making eggs, pancakes and cereal every morning.
"They have been a lot of help to me," Humphrey said, picking fluff from her great-granddaughter's dandelion bouquet off the burgundy couch.
"They keep you a lot of company."
siff@vindy.com